Thursday, May 9, 2013

Here are three videos from the House Oversight Committee hearing in which three whistleblowers testified. First up, committee member Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) questioned the senior most whistleblower and second in command in Libya behind Ambassador Christopher Stevens - Gregory Hicks. In this line of questioning, Gowdy begins by showing how absurd it was for Ambassador Susan Rice to go on five Sunday talk shows on 9/16/12 and point to a demonstration and a video.

Gowdy also introduces a new name into the Benghazi scandal - Beth Jones. Jones is the Acting Assistant Secretary for Near Eastern Affairs. He reads an excerpt from an email sent by Jones to several high ranking members of the State Department on September 12th in which Jones relayed a conversation she had with the Libyan Ambassador. That conversation included an urging by Jones to the ambassador to 'continue to make strong statements'. Jones also said on September 12th that 'Islamic extremists' and 'Ansar al-Sharia' was behind the attacks.

The Libyan president flew to Benghazi and appear on Face the Nation on 9/16/12 right before Rice did. Unfortunately for Libya's president, while he did make a strong statement on the CBS Sunday show, Rice's appearance followed and she totally contradicted him with the 'protest' / 'video' narrative. It is this appearance by Rice that chilled relations with Libya and is largely looked to as the reason the FBI was not permitted into Libya.

A related video comes from Rep. Jim Jordan's exchange with Hicks. An increasingly common occurrence these days seems to be bureaucrats who express dissent often end up being targets. In this exchange, the topic of Beth Jones came up again. After Rice's appearance on the Sunday talk shows, Hicks had received a call from Jones. During that conversation, he asked her why Rice said what she did on those shows (why did she lie). According to Hicks, ever since having the gall to ask that question, he has been a target.

Another individual's name is introduced in this exchange. Her name is Cheryl Mills and she was Hillary Clinton's Chief of Staff. According to Hicks, he received a phone call from a very angry Mills during a visit to Libya by Oversight Committee member, Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT).